What has impressed me, amidst all the death, carnage and destruction, is the stability of the areas reclaimed from the sea. The nuclear facility, where they are having so much trouble, is built on land reclaimed from the sea. All around Tokyo Bay are multiple areas reclaimed from the sea. The oil facility that was/is on fire is on reclaimed land. The airport in Osaka is a man-made island.

One phenomenom that normally happens in earthqukes is a process called soil liquifaction. When the ground starts shaking, water usually enters land reclaimed from the sea and leads to collapse of the land and the buildings on it. I have not seen any evidence of this happening in Japan. The japanese seem to have really perfected the way to reclaime land from the sea and not have it sink during an earthquake.

I heard on the news here in US, that most places had about a 40 minute warning about the tsunami.

The height of the waves was 10 meters -- about 5 stories high, there wouldn't be much left standing, and truthfully I am not surprised of the number missing.

It's hard to tell yet whether the loss of life may reach the levels of the Great Tsunami of 2004, and I pray that it does not, given the effects of a close-in epicenter (closer to the shoreline than the Sumatra earthquake) and the fact that relatively few coastal residents would have had time to flee far enough inland or high enough to avoid the wave crests.

The one planning weakness I'm sensing in all of the coverage is a better understanding of the effects of a combined great earthquake and tsunami, including the impact on nuclear energy facilities. You can be sure that is going to get a lot of attention worldwide, and that future facilities are going to need better fail safe mechanisms to account for that risk.

I lived less than 2 hours from Three Mile Island when that melt-down occurred (in the DC suburbs, and I had my car packed and ready to flee southward until the danger passed at that time.

I'm concerned that there still could be aftershocks in the 8.0 range that could trigger another tsunami, even though the likelihood of another 8.9 quake is highly remote.

Edited to respond to Joab:

There is a tsunami warning system and it worked as it was supposed to. The issue here is that there wasn't a sufficient response system in place, especially when the epicenter was so close to shore, and the amount of time was so brief (10-15 minutes) That wavefront is moving at speeds of 400 to 500 mph and has a lot of energy connected to it. While the time wasn't sufficient for northeastern Japan, it minimized the loss of life elsewhere in the Pacific Rim (none in Hawaii, one fool in California who should have known better, and I haven't read of any others anywhere else.)

Within a few more years, there will be a tsunami warning system in place in the Atlantic Ocean basin, including the Caribbean Sea, in addition to the Indian and Pacific basins.

Thats the town that has half its residents missing.....about 9500 unaccounted for. The shape of the bay funnels the water. It probably had a higher tsunami than places with straight coasts.

Japan reported about 1000 confirmed dead. I suspect the amount to be more.. i think it will reach up to even 2000 to 3000 deaths.

It breaks my heart, to see the tsunami coming in and those who were left to fend for their lives. Wasn't there supposed to be tsunami warning system...?

Yes, there was. But an earthquake that was apparently so close to shore would probably create a tsunami that moved so quickly that there wasn't time for the Japanese to head for the hills, especially in the area nearest the earthquake. Hawaii and the West Coast of the U.S. had more time.

One of the good stories I read. The US Air Force Base at Yukota in the NW surburbs of Tokyo landed 11 diverted commerical jets. The base air crews refuled the jets and fed the passengers with flight meals. They opened the base community center and airmen and their familes played host. 9 of the jets flew to Narita, but two stayed there for the night. They were housed in the community center and were allowed to off load their baggage to clean up. The base jazz band played music for them all. The airmen even unloaded the passengers live animals and kept them indoors on the cold night. All passengers, pets and baggage was reloaded the next morning and the planes also flew to Narita.

The airbase is becoming the focal point for US assistance. The army and air force are staging helicopters out of there that are flying in relief supplies to areas that cannot be reached by road assistance yet.

The height of the waves was 10 meters -- about 5 stories high, there wouldn't be much left standing, and truthfully I am not surprised of the number missing.

It's hard to tell yet whether the loss of life may reach the levels of the Great Tsunami of 2004, and I pray that it does not, given the effects of a close-in epicenter (closer to the shoreline than the Sumatra earthquake) and the fact that relatively few coastal residents would have had time to flee far enough inland or high enough to avoid the wave crests.

The one planning weakness I'm sensing in all of the coverage is a better understanding of the effects of a combined great earthquake and tsunami, including the impact on nuclear energy facilities. You can be sure that is going to get a lot of attention worldwide, and that future facilities are going to need better fail safe mechanisms to account for that risk.

I lived less than 2 hours from Three Mile Island when that melt-down occurred (in the DC suburbs, and I had my car packed and ready to flee southward until the danger passed at that time.

I'm concerned that there still could be aftershocks in the 8.0 range that could trigger another tsunami, even though the likelihood of another 8.9 quake is highly remote.

Edited to respond to Joab:

There is a tsunami warning system and it worked as it was supposed to. The issue here is that there wasn't a sufficient response system in place, especially when the epicenter was so close to shore, and the amount of time was so brief (10-15 minutes) That wavefront is moving at speeds of 400 to 500 mph and has a lot of energy connected to it. While the time wasn't sufficient for northeastern Japan, it minimized the loss of life elsewhere in the Pacific Rim (none in Hawaii, one fool in California who should have known better, and I haven't read of any others anywhere else.)

Within a few more years, there will be a tsunami warning system in place in the Atlantic Ocean basin, including the Caribbean Sea, in addition to the Indian and Pacific basins.

Thanks! I knew there was a tsunami warning system, but it didn't occur to me that the tsunami happened so quickly within 10 to 15 minutes. As a geog student, i learnt that there should be at least 1 to 2 hours after an earthquake for response time for tsunami...

There was a 6.5 off the coast on Monday as well...but nothing that big as Snooky says. Thank goodness!

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"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

I have heard some new data on the March 11th Japanese earthquake. The deep ocean tsunami......the one that crossed the Pacific basin was approx 3.5 feet high. Normally these waves are measured in inches.

Subsidence along the NE Japanese coast has been measured from 1m to 2 m after the quake and before the tsunami arrived. The height of the tsunami wave when it hits land is determined by several factors.......the slope of the underwater shoreline, the geography/topography of the land it hits and a few more. At one place north of Sendai.....the wave was measured at 14.9 m, and possibily 17m in another place. This was in a place where the water got funneled up into a bay that was surrounded by mountains....the only place for the water to go is up. It was at Minamisanriku.........this is the town with approx 10,000 missing residents.

If you are interested and want to see a fantastic program that explains so much about this particular event, then go to http://www.pbs.org The program will be listed under the NOVA headline/section and titled as Japanese Killer Quake.

I am not sure if there was some kind of conference going on in Japan at the time, but there sure seemed to be an inordinate amount of foreign earthquake/tsunami experts, on the ground in Japan, when the earthquake and tsunami occured.

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia's earthquake agency on Monday issued a tsunami warning after a 7.1 magnitude quake struck at about 300 kilometers (186 miles) off Cilacap on the south coast of Java island.

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

Y'all keep your fingers crossed for me too...apparently we are in the path of the severe storms sweeping across the US tomorrow. 60% chance of tornados!!

If you need me, I'll be under the bed....

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"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

Peach....just remember to duck.......it is supposed to start here soon. We are right on the edge. The prediction is all the action will be east of me........but if it gets rocking and rollin.......I will "try" to PM you and let you know......lol

The triple point collision (dry line, low pressure center and cold front) are supposed to hit here from midnight to sunup.